


Turncoats

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Gen, Mission Fic, ex-Imperial buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: “How long?” Bodhi muttered.Kay tilted his head down toward his chest plate in a way that somehow managed to look annoyed. “I told you, that will depend on whether the firewalls remain Imperial-standard or have been modified. Now make yourself useful distracting anyone who might come along.”





	Turncoats

It was time. Bodhi took a deep breath and slapped the switch to exit hyperspace. 

Now came the first test, and it would have to be done quickly. His finger was already on the comm, ready to transmit the access code, before the dazzling silver rain surrounding the ship shrank back down to the pinpoints of realspace stars. The engines whined and thumped, almost as loud as his heartbeat, and he realized he was still holding that breath. He blew it out in a long rush. 

Kay’s vocoder crackled beside his left ear. “Don’t worry, Bodhi. If the code isn’t valid, there’s only a twenty-two percent chance that we’ll have time to notice anything before they fire on us.” The droid sounded unaffected by the statistics.

Bodhi balked, his finger smacking the key harder than he meant to. “Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

“I thought organics lived by the adage _Ignorance is bliss_.”

Bodhi still felt a little nervous around Kay sometimes. His new chassis (which had taken quite some time and ingenuity for Cassian to source) was more modern than the one that had been destroyed on Scarif, and its Imperial insignia was still bright. It was harder to see Kay’s individuality—until he came out with something like that, of course. Only Kay would consider it bliss not to know whether they were about to be blown into protons by the Imperial station they’d just requested docking permission from.

A voice garbled by the delay of secure relay transmissions hissed through the comm and Bodhi straightened, instinctively adapting the pose of a pilot who was where he was supposed to be. “Transport JY-7723T, you are cleared to dock. Please proceed to slip U936.”

Bodhi closed his eyes for a moment and took another deep breath. One hurdle cleared; just another ten or so deadly tests left to pass.

 

The next step—getting Kay where he could access the station’s mainframe—proved easier than they’d expected. Kay had been prepared to fake an issue with his core processor, even though that meant risking a closer inspection. But when Bodhi mentioned that his security droid had been running down quickly, the dock master just directed him to the closest recharging bay without even bothering to ask. 

Bodhi strode off at a rapid pace, trusting that Kay would follow in the approved security droid manner. In another stroke of luck, the bay was deserted except for a couple of MSE maintenance droids in their docking stations. Kay hooked himself into the charging point closest to an input terminal and managed to connect to it almost invisibly by extending a data spike from one of his phalanges. His shoulder joint was rotated a bit out of true, but that was all.

“How long?” Bodhi muttered.

Kay tilted his head down toward his chest plate in a way that somehow managed to look annoyed. “I told you, that will depend on whether the firewalls remain Imperial-standard or have been modified. Now make yourself useful distracting anyone who might come along.” His photoreceptors dimmed as he diverted power away from them to simulate a droid in low-power charging mode.

The waiting would be the worst part. Bodhi had known that and thought he’d been mentally prepared for it, but now he couldn’t help fidgeting. He wiped his hands on his jodhpurs, clasped his arms behind his back, and then folded them across his chest. He couldn’t just stand around in parade rest the whole time, that would look suspicious. 

He took out his datapad and stared blankly at it, trying to look like a bored pilot in search of something vaguely entertaining on the holonet instead of a Rebel infiltrator. Sweat slicked the hollow of his throat under the high collar of his tight gaberwool tunic and started to dampen the armpits.

“Estimated four point two minutes remaining,” Kay announced in a low monotone. Bodhi poked at the datapad with a finger, pretending to watch the latest smashball highlights. He couldn’t have told anyone the score, or even which teams were playing.

“Oh!” A droid tech rounded the corner in a hurry and skidded to a stop when she saw Bodhi. She bolted upright and snapped off a quick salute. “Commander.” 

Panic rang in Bodhi’s ears, battering at his skull, but he shoved it down and reminded himself everything had been triple-checked. His hair was trimmed, his beard shaved off, his (stolen) uniform was stiff enough to stand on its own and his boots shone like water. He was the perfect image of an Imperial Navy pilot. 

“Ensign.” He looked up and returned the salute lazily, trying to give off the air of someone with better things to do, annoyed at having to make a stop on this rusty space station.

“Problem with your droid, sir? Want me to take a look?” She set down her hand case of tools on the workbench and Bodhi sidled over just a touch, trying to keep himself between her and Kay.

The tech leaned in to inspect Kay’s jointed neck. “What are you doing?” Bodhi barked, his voice harsh with fear.

“This restraining bolt looks like it’s working loose,” the tech said, glancing at him. Her pale blue eyes were suspicious, or maybe that was just the effect of the cap drawn low over her forehead throwing them into shadow. 

If she got close enough to realize that the bolt was fake, he and Kay were done for. They couldn’t shoot their way out now.

“Don’t touch it!” he snapped. “Only Admiral Priff’s personal staff have authorization to maintain that droid.” And now that he’d come out with such a stupid lie, he had to carry it off somehow. He sneered down his nose at her, summoning memories of the way Krennic’s pilot had behaved on Eadu, with a superiority so ingrained and unquestioned that it never occurred to him someone else might not recognize it. 

The tech wasn’t intimidated, though; she lifted her chin and glared right back at him. “Really? That seems a bit extreme.”

Kay said at a higher and more monotone pitch than usual, “I’m not finished recharging. I require two point six additional minutes to be fully operational.” Meaning he needed that much time to finish slicing into the personnel files for this station and inserting Cassian’s cover identity so that when he arrived in ten hours, they’d be expecting him. 

Bodhi had to defuse this tech’s suspicions quickly or he and Kay were about to be spaced. He changed tactics, letting his shoulders relax into a more natural posture and taking his cap off, running his palm nervously over the short hair that still felt weird. “Look, you know how some of the top brass get about their stuff,” he said. He leaned closer, his tone low and confiding, inviting sympathy or at least commiseration. “If I let anyone but a Level Six tech near that droid, we’d _both_ end up on the scrap heap. I’m on the homeward leg of this transit, anyway, Kay will get checked over soon.”

Stang it, he’d used Kay’s nickname instead of his numeric designation. And she was still looking at him skeptically. “Most people wouldn’t take that risk, especially with a security droid. You must really trust it.”

Bodhi swallowed and tried to smile ingratiatingly. “Well, he’s not the fastest chip in the core, but he’s very reliable…” 

_Please stay quiet, Kay_ , he prayed. If only he’d remember that he was supposed to be a standard-issue security droid, with a limited library of brief vocal responses and absolutely no capability for sarcasm. 

Kay’s photoreceptors brightened and he raised his head—but all he said was, “I am now fully recharged.” 

_Oh, thank the mothers._ Bodhi checked his chrono, trying to look casual, as though he were anxious to leave for completely mundane reasons. “I’d better get a move on, then. If I’m late to fetch the Admiral there’ll be a court martial.” 

By the time Kay had uncoupled from the charging station Bodhi was fighting off waves of dizziness. They’d been station-side for less than thirty minutes, but it felt like hours since he’d been able to take a full breath, between the tightly tailored uniform and the consciousness that one more word or action out of place could give them away.

He remembered to return the droid tech’s salute again and held on grimly until they’d cast off, got clearance to launch, and fled into the nearest hyperspace lane from which they could drop out in a few parsecs without looking suspicious. Then he bent forward at the waist and put his head between his knees, gasping in huge draughts of cold air. 

“Are you about to vomit, Bodhi?” 

“No,” he got out. “Just—need a minute.” He sat back up and shoved his cap off, wiping sweat from his forehead and fumbling with the clasp of the chokingly tight collar. If he didn’t get that off now he was going to pass out. He undid the jacket and the trickle of fresh air on his soaked-through undershirt felt amazing. “Please tell me you did what we came for.”

“Of course. If not, we wouldn’t have left yet.”

“Oh yes, we would’ve,” Bodhi muttered. “I couldn’t have lasted another five minutes without giving us away.” He fought his way out of the constricting jacket, nearly ripping it as his elbows stuck in the sleeves, and threw it to the deck. The chill bit into his skin and damp shirt and he shivered. But he had nothing else to change into; in case they ran across any Imperial patrols, he had to remain Pilot Second-Class Hielen Wakas until they were back on base.

“Your skin temperature is rapidly falling,” Kay informed him. “If you’re not going to wear your clothes, you should at least make use of this.” A rough brown blanket was shoved at his chest. Bodhi blinked, but unfolded it and tugged it around his shoulders.

“Would you like me to take the helm for the next transit out of hyperspace?” Kay asked. 

“Yes, I would. Thanks, Kay.” Bodhi leaned back in the pilot’s seat. Kay was being surprisingly nurturing, for a droid with no subroutines on how to care for organics in its original code… maybe he’d picked it up from looking after Cassian. 

Kay’s servomotors whirred as he turned his head to inspect the fake restraining bolt. “Thank you for diverting attention from me. Otherwise, by this time I’d probably have been dismembered into scrap, if not melted down altogether.”

Bodhi laughed. “No problem. Us defectors have to stick together, you know.” He closed his eyes and pulled the blanket up around his chin, huddling into its warmth. “But next time we do this, you need a better fake bolt.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always welcome! Or come say hi on [Tumblr](http://incognitajones.tumblr.com) or [Dreamwidth](http://incognitajones.dreamwidth.org).


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